We are passing through an area of abandoned rice paddies. The colonists worked very hard to cut down miles and miles of bald cypress swamp—and that has to be a hard job (wonder if they had slaves to do it then)—and now it has all returned to bald cypress swamp once again. Hard to tell man ever tamed this area.
I have learned a little of why rice is no longer grown in South Carolina. It turns out that the process of growing rice the traditional way, which means flooding the fields at some point in the growing season, can only be done by hand. Because the fields are so marshy and at times underwater, everything from sowing seed to harvesting the rice has to be done manually. In other rice growing states (Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and California) a hybrid type of rice is grown that requires irrigation, but is not grown in marsh conditions. Mechanized equipment can be used for the whole process so the cost of growing rice is much less. That pretty much put Carolina rice out of business. There are still a few farms, but they do not export the rice and it is only available in small boutique type shops. We bought some gold rice (not polished to white) from nearby Palmetto Plantation at the museum shop in Georgetown. I made it last night, and I do wonder if some of the dark particles I found were just pieces of chaff or if they were critters. I really to had to cull the rice before cooking it, just in case of the latter! It has sort of put me off to making it again….
Since leaving Georgetown we have been traveling through the cypress marshes. It’s always nice to be alone again….at least for a bit. I never like being alone on holidays, and we are rapidly approaching Easter (tomorrow, in fact). It would be nice to find an acquaintance we know when we arrive in Wrightsville later today.
Here are some scenes from the marsh. An abandoned rice paddy where cypress are coming back.
An osprey on the nest watching us as we pass.
Traveling through a landscape that has returned to unspoiled marsh.
And turtles sunning themselves on a cypress root. I just had to include it even though it’s blurry! (So….what do you call a collection of turles? A bale or a turn. I’m going with bale since we are in cotton country!)
